Salvation
by entropicfetus
Summary: Set after the events of OotP, Draco is upset over his father's arrest and Hermione thinks she can get him to switch sides. Draco decides to play along, until he gets what he's really after. DMHG
1. The Room of Requirement

The room was lit by flickering torches, with wooden bookcases lining the walls. It was large and well lit, especially for a room with no windows. He supposed there had been no...requirement for windows. The bookcases were filled with just about every book on how to counter the dark arts that he could imagine, and plenty he'd never bothered to imagine. At the far end of the room was a set of shelves covered in various instruments like Sneakoscopes and Secrecy Sensors. It seemed a comfortable enough room, except that there were no chairs or couches. Instead, the floor was covered in large silk cushions.

The Room of Requirement, from what he understood. Harry's special room where he'd trained Dumbledore's Army. The room was supposed to change depending on what one needed, but what Draco Malfoy needed at that exact moment was this room. He wanted to understand the secret little club that Harry had created. He wanted to understand how a bunch of bumbling Potter worshipers, mudbloods, and Muggle lovers had managed to hold off Death Eaters. Help had arrived by the time his father was taken, but Draco knew deep down inside that it was all Harry's fault.

He paced the length of the room slowly, stalking like a caged lion. It didn't seem like much to him. Nothing that couldn't have been gathered elsewhere around the castle, at any rate. Yet, somehow, this room had really trained an army. Another great accomplishment of the famous Harry Potter, he thought with a sneer. There was nothing the Boy Who Lived couldn't do, after all.

From as far back as he could remember he'd been hearing about Potter. About how the half-blood brat had managed to defeat the Dark Lord before he knew which end of a wand to use. Even the followers of the Dark Lord were impressed by him. Even his own father would never shut up about him.

The fact was, Draco had decided that Harry Potter wasn't anything special at all. From the snippets he'd picked up from his father, Harry only survived the Dark Lord because of his parents' sacrifice. And he knew from experience that Harry only continued to win the House Cup because of Dumbledore's blatant and disgusting favoritism. And Dumbledore's Army? It probably wouldn't have even existed if it hadn't been for Harry's friends. Probably all of the real planning had come from his Muggle-born girlfriend.

Yet, again and again Potter was the one being praised. Potter was the hero. When he went home from school on holiday his father didn't want to know what Draco had accomplished. He wanted to hear about Potter.

"To hell with Potter," he muttered under his breath, before turning sharply on his heel and blasting one of the bookcases with his wand. It only took out one corner of the bookcase, sending several smoldering books to the ground, but it at least gave him a small sense of satisfaction.

Draco raised his wand to destroy the rest of the bookcase, wishing it could be Potter instead. As much as he liked the ideology of the Dark Lord, he didn't look forward to the war. The whole concept of it had him cringing whenever his bravado slipped enough. He was a coward at heart and preferred safety to sacrifice. But, he thought with delight, he might finally win some admiration of his own if he took Potter out.

"Malfoy? What are you doing?"

Turning his head, he saw a familiar and vastly obnoxious girl with wildly curly brown hair. She was standing in the doorway with a bewildered look on her face as she took in the room. "Potter's pet mudblood," he sneered in disgust. "Spying on me now, are you? Come to gloat?"

"No, I...I was actually a bit concerned, when I saw you run off during the end of year feast," she explained, then bit her lip. "You've hardly been yourself since your father was sent to Azkaban. Your insults are getting far weaker, for one."

"Get off it," he scoffed, turning his back on her. "I haven't gone daft, you know. You don't care what happens to me, so long as it's properly humiliating and your precious Potter gets the glory."

Silence was the only response he got for several moments. Finally, he looked towards the doors again to see if she had left. She hadn't, though. She was a bit farther in the room, with a thoughtful look on her face.

"I don't like you in the slightest bit," she finally agreed, "but even though you don't act like it most of the time you're still a thinking, feeling being. I think there might even be a glimmer of intelligence somewhere within you. With your father gone now, I suppose I was hoping you might start to rethink a few things."

She paused and it was unclear if she had anything more to say on that train of thought. Her eyes met his at that moment as he glared at her hatefully and he thought, perhaps, he could see that she was starting to realize that this wasn't one of her best ideas.

"What did you think I'd do?" he finally asked, voice tight with anger. "Turn into some sort of blood traitor like Potter's sainted godfather? Did you think I was just waiting for the opportunity to betray everything I've been raised to, is that it? What, did you think I act like I hate you because 'Daddy made me'?" A nasty smirk spread across his face as he crossed his arms. "That hasn't anything to do with it. I hate you and your kind because I'm better than you, but you insist on thinking we're equals."

Calling her a mudblood earlier had seemed to just roll right off of her, but this time his insults finally got her ire. He watched in satisfaction as she straightened her spine and squared her shoulders, as if her petite frame could ever stand tall. Taking her wand from within one of her voluminous robe pockets, she raised it slightly.

"I have better marks than you in all of our classes and I helped fight off a group of Death Eaters. I'd say that proves rather conclusively that blood has nothing to do with competency as a wizard."

"A bunch of old, out of practice Death Eaters," he countered, raising his own wand slightly. "And they were probably more interested in playing with you than killing you as they should. I'd like to see how well you'd do against me."

She faltered, narrowing her eyes slightly. Her wand began to lower a bit. "Oh, this is ridiculous," she sighed. "I'm not going to let you pull me into some sort of duel. Honestly, I'm above this sort of thing and as a prefect you should be--"

Draco ignored her words and raised his wand. If she wouldn't fight back, so much the better. "_STUPEFY_!" he shouted, cutting her words off before she finished her tirade.

The red light that shot from the end of Draco's wand just narrowly missed Hermione as she jerked her entire body to one side, eyes wide. She raised her wand again, jaw set. Now, she was giving him that look that usually cowed Potter and Weasley into deference from what he'd seen, but he wasn't particularly worried. "As I was saying, you should be above this, too," she finished in a prim voice.

"Aren't you supposed to be smart, Granger?" he asked with a sneer as they slowly began circling each other. She wasn't just running for the door, which was a bit of a disappointment to him. It didn't really surprise him, though. She'd always seemed like a stubborn nag. "I don't want you in this room or this school or even in this world. Go away and leave me alone before I show you what should really happen to your kind."

That threat made her almost back down, he saw. She started to take a step towards the door, but then thought better of it. With a swish and a flick of her wand she cast a levitation charm, making the sleeves of his robe fly up.

"No Dark Mark," she commented triumphantly as his face turned white with fury. "Just as I thought. For all your talk you're still just a little boy trying to pretend he's his father."

He took a moment to bat his sleeves back down, glaring at her all the time. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, if you're going to talk like one of _his_ followers and with You-Know-Who back, it would only make sense for you to get the Mark. If you really meant what you were saying, of course," she explained.

With the wizarding world openly at war and his father in prison his mother had sent him a letter advising him to be a bit more quiet about things, knowing how he loved to brag. She had suggested he not talk too much about the Dark Lord or things of that nature, at least not until the war turned in their favor. She'd threatened him if he said anything to get her precious home raided again.

Obviously, this whole discussion with the Muggle-born would have his mother throwing a fit. She was one of Potter's best friends. The enemy, with a capital E.

"Do you really think Dumbledore would let Death Eaters go strutting around here?" Draco snapped. "Every wizard who ever wished you mudbloods would fall off the planet isn't part of his inner circle."

She opened her mouth, as though she had the perfect retort, then paused with a horrified look. He wondered briefly what it was that she'd been going to say, but didn't worry about it too much. He simply raised his wand again to shut her up for a bit longer, intoning, "_Petrificus totalus_."

Much to his shock and disgust, she deflected his attack with a shield charm. Now, she looked a bit grim as he walked towards her and she continued taking a step away to mirror each of his. "Is that what you'd all wish?" she asked after a moment. "That we'd fall off the planet?"

"Or die," he agreed with relish. "We certainly don't want you in our schools, taking our jobs, and pretending that you're as good as we are."

"'We' being purebloods alone, I presume," she commented softly.

She seemed to finally be catching on, which pleased him in an odd sort of way. He wanted her to understand exactly why she would never really be part of the wizarding world. Why she would never really be accepted, except by fools like Dumbledore and the Weasleys. "We're the only ones who have any right to it. Your family didn't do anything for us. Show me in one of your precious history books where a member of _your_ family gets named."

Her brows drew together at that. "And how far back do you think your family's pure?"

"All the way to the beginning," he told her proudly. The family tree didn't go back much further than the fifteenth century, but there wasn't any reason to think Muggles had sneaked in before then.

A smile slowly curled about her lips and she looked as though she was thinking about something. He readied himself for a hurled curse after his earlier attempts to get at her. "What would you do if you found some Muggle ancestry in your family tree?" she pressed. "I mean, that has to change things a bit, doesn't it?"

"It can't be found because it doesn't exist!" he insisted indignantly, then, at a loss for anything better, he shot off a Jelly Legs Jinx at her. She deflected it with the shield charm again, which only made him angrier. He'd heard that she had been taken out early in the fight at the Ministry of Magic, but despite that he'd yet to score on her at all.

"Are you sure?" she pressed. "Before the split intermarriage was even more common than it is now, and most everyone agrees Muggles and wizards came from the same origins besides."

"It doesn't matter even if it's true," he sniffed. He stopped stalking her around the room, though. She was, of course, entirely wrong. He knew that without even having to think about it. "Even if we have some distant Muggle relation, it would be so far back that it wouldn't even matter. We've accomplished far too much."

"So it's really about accomplishments?" she pressed, getting that obnoxiously eager sound to her voice that she always got when she was figuring something out in class that no one else had caught onto yet. "If a Muggle-born witch invents something or is a famous Auror or Quidditch player, would you accept her then?"

He shook his head, not quite so angry now, though nowhere near happy. She was just trying to puzzle through the whole thing as if it was a problem in class, when he knew it was much more complicated than all of that. "No! It's about more than that. It's about blood and prestige and..."

"I don't think you even understand what it's about," she interrupted with a brilliant smile, sounding just as self-satisfied as she had when she'd checked him for the Dark Mark. "You're just parroting your father, trying to come up with any reason you can to pretend that you're better than the rest of us. Is that really what you want? Do you honestly want to grow up to be some sort of criminal, torturing people because of who their parents were?"

A moment of silence met that question. Part of him felt just fine about torturing people. It was just a much more effective form of bullying, he thought. Killing people, though... That thought did tend to make him a bit squeamish. Worse was getting sent away to Azkaban, or getting hurt, or even dying in some battle. "I wouldn't be a criminal if You-Know-Who wins," he finally decided.

"So that's it?" she pressed, raising a brow. "You're barely sixteen and you're going to throw your life away to a cause that makes no logical sense whatsoever?"

"Would you just shut up?" he demanded. He wracked his brain for another spell to try on her, one that would shut her up and let him gloat over her.

Before he finished raising his wand, she had hers aimed and ready. "_Expelliarmus_," she called. Whether she had grown tired of fending off his charms and jinxes or if she had actually decided to fight back, he was unsure, but either way, his wand went flying out of his hand.

"Now," Hermione declared, gingerly taking his wand in her left hand, "as I'd been saying before: You might want to start rethinking a few things."

It really was getting to be frustrating, the way she kept bothering him and wouldn't let the whole thing drop. He didn't have to explain himself to her. Nor did it matter why purebloods were superior to mudbloods. It was just a fact. Everyone knew it. Draco was sure that even if someone asked a Weasley he'd have to admit that it was better to be a pureblood.

"Why won't you stop harassing me?" he snapped after he got over the shock of being disarmed. Hermione didn't seem to be gearing up for any sort of hex, so he began circling her again, moving closer and looking for a way to get his wand back from her. "My father's in prison, thanks to you and your friends. I just came down here to be alone."

Her look softened a bit at those words, as if she actually cared what happened to him. It was possible that she did, now that he thought about it. She did go off on bizarre crusades at times. He seemed to recall hearing some rumor about her trying to liberate the house elves. He supposed that it would make sense for her to attempt to be his salvation next. It sounded about as likely of success as a house elf rebellion.

There was a long moment of silence while she gave him a sympathetic look, until finally she spoke again. "I'm sorry," she offered in a quiet voice.

She was sorry? That was even worse! "I don't need an apology from the likes of _you_," he sneered hatefully, hands balled into fists.

"I just wanted to..." Her voice trailed off and sighed as she shook her head. She cast her eyes to the floor, looking a bit winsome and lost. He didn't let that distract him, though. It was still Granger, and now she wasn't looking. He moved closer. "Oh, forget it. I don't know what I was thinking," she finally announced in disgust.

Just as she began to raise her eyes again he reached out to grab her wrist, to wrench his wand free from her. "Oww!" she shrieked, struggling to keep the wand away from him. It was a quickly losing battle, since he was quite a bit larger and stronger than her. "Let go of me, you brute!"

Before he could get the wand back from her, though, she had her own wand raised and was opening her mouth to cast a spell. It was the smartest thing to do in the situation, so he wasn't really surprised by it. He'd just hoped to wrench his wand free first.

He couldn't really explain what happened next. He could have slapped her, or covered her mouth with his hand, or something else along those lines. But, one hand was busy trying to take his wand from her and the other was now attempting to keep her from pointing her wand at him. So, his options were a bit limited, he felt. Certainly, the fact that she was a pretty girl who'd been giving him looks of sympathy only a moment before had very, very little to do with it. Whatever the reason was--even if the most likely reason was something he didn't want to think about--instead of hitting her or trying to smother her or even tossing her into one of the bookcases he kissed her.

He bent down and his lips met hers, cutting off whatever spell she'd been about to attempt. She immediately stopped struggling against him, though she didn't really kiss him back at first. He supposed she was just in shock. To be honest, so was he. Even when she stopped fighting he didn't take his wand away from her. His mind was both racing and blank at the same time, which didn't seem possible, but was probably the result of some sort of strange, magical paradox that was induced when kissing the best friend of one's hated adversary. His thoughts just kept running over the fact that he was kissing Hermione Granger and there was no room for anything else to make its way through.

After a moment or two she stepped closer to him and began to kiss him back. The kiss was softness and light, with lips just glancing and stroking over one another, as if both of them was a little afraid of making the kiss any firmer. It might make the confusing moment a little more real, a little less like some strange accident involving lips in the midst of a fight. As it was, it was simply the sweetest, most innocent kiss he'd ever engaged in.

Hermione was the first one to break the kiss, breathing heavily with wide, startled eyes. He stared back at her from centimeters away. She looked like she might say something or try to pull away again, but he didn't want that. Now he was intrigued. Confused, but intrigued. Leaning in to her, he began trailing light kisses over her cheek, nuzzling the soft skin and slowly working his way down towards her throat. He could feel her body melting against his and so he let go of her wrists, sliding his arms around her instead. That seemed to end the moment, though. At once she shook her head and began to draw back. "No," she murmured weakly. "We shouldn't do this."

Raising his head again from her throat, he frowned a bit and leaned forward even as she pulled away. His arms tightened around her to cut short the growing space between them. The whole situation was ridiculous and vaguely disgusting. It was Granger he was holding. Potter's mudblood friend. The big-toothed, frizzy-haired bookworm who was nagging him only a minute before this. But, her teeth, mysteriously, didn't look as big as they once had and the frizzy hair was actually sort of strangely alluring, as if it was indicative of some wild woman within her.

Also, there was much to be said for the simple nature of a sixteen year old boy.

"Just one more kiss?" he whispered as he lightly grazed her lips with his own. That seemed to melt her resolve, because she relaxed against him again and nodded limply. He couldn't help but smirk in triumph before kissing her again. It began as soft as the other kiss had been, but slowly grew in intensity as his lips nipped and grasped at hers. One of his hands left its spot at her back to slide up her body and bury itself in her hair. He couldn't run his fingers through it like he could with Pansy. Actually, he probably would have lost a finger that way if he'd tried. Instead, he had to content himself with simply playing with the wild curls and twisting them.

Since she was a very petite girl and he was quite a bit taller than her standing like this was beginning to get a little uncomfortable for him. That's what he was telling himself anyway. The comfort of his back was the sole reason that he began to lower himself to one of the cushions strewn about the room to catch stunned D.A. members. Trying to equalize their height was the motive behind tugging her down with him.

As they both sat down together on the cushion he felt her arms wrapping around him. She'd done something with the wands, apparently, but he had no desire to end the kiss. He was only getting this one now. Feeling a little bolder, he parted his lips against hers and traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue, tasting her for the first time. She gasped softly and he drew her closer to him by the hand in her hair, snaking his tongue past her lips. Her kissing became less sure, as though she didn't know what to do, so he slowed himself down, stroking her tongue with his rhythmically, showing her what to do bit by bit. She made a soft mewling sound in the back of her throat and moved closer to him on the cushion. Her soft body was pressed to his in clear invitation.

Sliding his free hand from her back, he ran it down her side and along her hip and leg, before catching the hem of her robes with his fingers. He tugged them up a little, then let his hand steal inside. Now, he stroked over the bare skin of her leg, moving up higher until he found the skirt she was wearing under her robes and started to push that up as well.

Much to his surprise, she started struggling against him again. Her hands came between their bodies to push at his chest as she turned her face away from the kiss. "Malfoy, let me go," she snapped, sounding angry. "You only asked for a kiss."

"Don't tell me you didn't want that, Granger," he countered with a drawl. He'd felt the way she'd been pressing herself closer to him, and heard that kittenish sound she'd made. He smirked again, letting his eyes roam over her as he let her go. Now that he knew that she could do better things with her mouth than speak, he wanted to explore the rest of her hidden talents. She caught his eye and looked mortified by the look, quickly scrambling up from the cushion. She scooped up her wand from where she'd dropped it, then fled from the room without another word.

As the door swung shut behind her he sighed, running a hand through his hair. From the moment she'd come in the room he'd wanted to see her running from it. It figured that she'd only do so after he'd decided he wanted her to stay.


	2. The Plan

Draco threw himself down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling in his room. He had just returned for the summer from Hogwarts and wasn't in the best of moods, mainly because of the way he'd returned. On the train ride home Potter and his own private militia had blasted him, along with Crabbe and Goyle, with enough hexes that only now was he starting to feel like himself again. He'd arrived more closely resembling a giant slug in robes than a Malfoy. His mother had been deeply disgusted and after fixing him up had told him to go away from her before she became ill.

There were plenty of things he could do for entertainment, of course, but he just didn't feel like any of them. He was still worrying over everything that had happened with the mudblood. He'd kissed girls before, and even done more satisfying things than kissing, but this was different. This wasn't with some pureblood. It wasn't even with a half-blood girl that he was willing to put up with. It had been with Potter's frizzy haired, bossy, buck-toothed, brainy, Muggle-born best friend. Half the time, Draco'd thought the two of them were going together, but perhaps not.

He'd kissed Hermione Granger and just wasn't nearly as disgusted by it as he should have been.

That wasn't to say that he'd _liked_ it or anything. Clearly not. What was there to like about kissing a girl like that? Oh, certainly she was nicely shaped under her robes and her lips were soft and she had very pretty brown eyes, but it was still Granger. Just because the mudblood wasn't hideous didn't mean he really wanted to kiss her. It had just been the best way to distract her, right?

Of course that had to be all that there was to it.

But, maybe when they went back to school they'd happen to be alone again, in some dark hallway where few other students ever went. He could kiss her again, in a situation like that. She'd probably pretend that she didn't want it or something, but he knew that she did. He remembered how she'd responded to his kisses before. Maybe the second time around she wouldn't be so uptight and wouldn't run away when he slid his hand under her skirt.

On the other hand, what might happen if the Dark Lord rose in power again? All of the Muggle-born students would have to leave school, fleeing and hiding for their safety. He could give safety to Granger, though. Lock her up in Malfoy Manor and make sure she knew exactly who was responsible for saving her life. Surely she'd be so overcome with gratitude that she'd agree to anything he asked of her. And, he could ask for a lot. There were all sorts of things he could make her do and she'd just be so, so happy to be alive and safe....

His thoughts kept tumbling along those lines until he realized what he was doing and wrenched his thoughts away from her, making a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. If it had just been an attempt to distract her why was he still thinking about it? And why did his mind keep going off on little flights of fancy, imagining scenarios in which he could be alone with her again? He didn't fancy her or anything as grotesque as that. No, he couldn't stand her personality, or her background. He hated everything about her, except of course the parts he was attracted to. And, in the end, that was really it, wasn't it? Just an ordinary, healthy physical attraction.

To someone he hated.

Well, it wasn't an _ideal_ attraction, clearly, but he figured that he had a couple of options here. He could try to forget about any physical desire he had for her. That might be difficult, and ultimately unsatisfying, but it was definitely the most attractive option. On the other hand, he could lust after her from afar like some sort of complete idiot. As likely as that sounded at the moment he didn't really want to go down that road.

He groaned in utter disgust as he threw a hand over his eyes. "Stupid mudblood," he muttered to himself. "I hate her. I hate her a _lot_. She's a complete bitch: a stupid Muggle-born, toothy, hairy, Potter worshipping, house-elf loving bitch."

As he continued his tirade, something started to nag at him. Some little thought was there in the back of his head, some association he hadn't made just yet. After a moment, it was bothering him so much that he stopped insulting her and tried to figure out what it was. Something about the house-elves, which meant something about Granger going in for ridiculous lost causes. Which meant something about...

He took the hand from his eyes and sat bolt upright on his bed. A nasty grin slowly spread itself across his face as he thought over it. He had more than two options. There was a way to have his cake and eat it, too. Or, more accurately, have his mudblood and destroy her, too. Now that he'd seen it the whole idea was so ridiculously obvious that he wondered if he could really fool her. She had been willing to believe that a logical discussion would be enough to make him turn his back on his father, though. She was an intelligent girl, he had to admit, but she was also moronically naive at times.

Which, of course, was perfect for his plan.


End file.
